It was close, but when all was said and done, the Carson High School boys left Mt. Rose Sunday with a clean sweep of the NIAA State Alpine Skiing Championships.
Devon Anderson won the giant slalom on Sunday, while teammates Danny Rotter and freshman Mats Boehnke placed second and third respectively to give the Senators a sweep of the top three places at Mt. Rose's East Bowl.
Furthermore, Rotter and Boehnke finished as co-champions in the boys combined standings for the two-day meet.
And yes, Carson had enough depth to capture both the giant slalom and combined team championships by narrow margins. The Senators edged Reno by a 463-455 score to win the giant slalom title and by a 927-917 margin in the combined standings. McQueen was a close third in the combined with 895 points and Galena was fourth with 784.
The combined team title was Carson's first since 1997.
"I'm very, very happy," Carson coach Jack Reinhardt said. "The kids did a great job, especially considering the conditions. The visibility was very poor in the morning - you could see three panels on the course and that was about it - and even when the clouds burned off in the afternoon, it was still snowing."
Then again, this came as no surprise because the Senators had a strong nucleus of returnees from a team that finished third at state behind Galena and Reno last year.
"No, this wasn't a surprise because I knew we had quality and depth," Reinhardt said. "I knew, if we could qualify eight guys for the meet, we could win it. And we qualified 10."
Five skiers on each team score, and the Senators put their five in the top 26 during Sunday's giant slalom.
Devon Anderson, who fell during Saturday's slalom, recovered to win the giant slalom with a time of 31.40 seconds. Rotter was only four-tenths of a second behind as he second in 31.81, while Boehnke finished third in 31.83.
"Devon blew out in the slalom yesterday and now he's the state g.s. champion," Reinhardt said.
Another important factor for the Senators was a 10th-place performance by Brett Anderson, who was clocked at 33.43. Rob Ghiglieri finished 26th to give Carson 74 points that locked up the team title.
Also for the Senators Sunday, Robbie Beasom finished 32nd, Chris Bessette 39th and Mike Cooke 42nd.
Galena's top finisher in the giant slalom was Chase Houston, who finished seventh in a time of 32.69.